


No Short Cuts To Glory

by ProfessorFlimflam



Category: Holby City
Genre: Holby Marathon, King Edward - Freeform, Mashed Potato Ficathon, Potato faced men, marathons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 03:27:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14535630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorFlimflam/pseuds/ProfessorFlimflam
Summary: Bernie is surprised to see how well Edward Campbell has done in the annual Holby Marathon. She asks him a little more about his training regime and discovers all is not quite as it seems...





	No Short Cuts To Glory

A&E was fuller than usual today after the annual Holby Marathon, with numerous cases of dehydration, exhaustion, sprains and injuries sustained during the race. Everywhere you looked, there were broken down runners limping, hobbling, and in extreme cases, even crawling along the corridors. Every stairwell was clogged with the shattered shells of once aspiring athletes climbing backwards down the stairs, one painful step at a time.

Edward Campbell, on the other hand, strutted through the corridors of the hospital, foil blanket flowing behind him like a superhero’s cape, the fluorescent lighting glinting off the medal round his neck. Dark patches under his arms and on his chest were the only evidence that he had exerted himself today, but the proud glow of achievement radiated from him like the sun from a snow-peaked mountain.

Heads turned in admiration as he swept by, cutting a fine figure. he was tall, he had just crossed the finishing line of a marathon, and he looked as though he had barely broken a sweat in the doing of it. One head, though, turned his way for a different reason.

‘Edward? Edward Campbell? Goodness, you’ve made good time!” He turned, ready to accept the adulation of his latest fan, only to see the blonde head of Bernie Wolfe, his ex-wife’s unexpected new squeeze, cocked to one side as she regarded him with scepticism. She looked at her watch. “You’ve made _really_ good time. Must have got under four hours, I should say. I wouldn’t have thought it - well done!”

“Thanks, er… Bernadette, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah - I’m pretty pleased with it - just looking for Liberty to let her know how I got on - she’s up on Obs and Gynae, thought I’d take a short cut, but -” He gestured to the crowds of runners around them. 

“Ah, yes. No such thing as a short cut, I’m afraid. Well, I'm sure you’ll get there in the end. It’s Bernie, by the way, as you know perfectly well.”

He looked sheepish, but didn’t apologise. “And you? How did you get on? Oh - but you’re in A&E, sorry - how thoughtless of me. Did you not finish? What was it, hit the wall? Well, it is an awfully long way if you haven't trained properly for it…”

Bernie laughed. “Oh, no - no. I finished all right - very pleased with my time, actually. No, I saw a few people collapsing along the way, wanted to check on them.” She looked at his spindly legs sticking out from his shorts, the pot belly pushing against his t shirt. Something she had said a moment ago suddenly struck a note in her mind, and she decided to see if it chimed true.

“Just out of interest, which training programme _did_ you follow? Pfizinger and Douglas? Flanders and Swann?Freeman, Hardy and Willis?”

Edward’s eyes widened a little, and a sweat broke out on his brow, more convincing than the lucozade he had poured over himself to look like sweat. “Er… the last one. Freedom, Marbles and Wilkins. Yeah, yeah. Great pan, got me all the round round, no sweat. Well, some sweat, obviously!” He laughed.

“Mmm. Pfizinger and Douglas is a marathon programme, Edward. Flanders and Swann were a music hall duo, and Freeman Hardy and Willis is a shoe shop - or it was when we were youngsters. God knows if it’s still in business now. So. Tell me - what was it - a bus? Or just cutting across the road at the Wyvern Bypass? That would have cut out about… nine miles, by my reckoning. But I don’t think you’ve run anywhere near seventeen miles, even, have you?”

He was truly sweating now, the sour sweat of fear. “Shh! Keep your voice down, will you? Al right, all right. I ducked out at mile three, got the bus to the centre and hid in the loos in Debenhams for a couple of hours, then joined the race again at mile twenty. I’ve run six miles today,” he said brightly, as though expecting praise.

“Good for you. I’ve run twenty six, and so have eight thousand other people. We worked hard for it, and it was tough, bloody tough, and you’ve got a medal that doesn’t belong to you. You’ll have been given a finishing position that's someone else's, and an age category position that somebody else earned today.” She tugged his medal hard, and the ribbon gave way. “What were you thinking? Who were you trying to impress? Oh, wait. Don't tell me. It’s Liberty, isn’t it? You’re worried your trophy wife will think you’re past it, so you’ve proved you’re not… by cheating?”

He shushed her again, desperately trying to pull her way fro where people could hear them. “Please, please don’t tell her - I couldn’t stand the shame.”

“So you do at least know it’s a shameful thing you’ve done, then. All right Edward. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to let the race organisers know that there’s been an admin error - that someone else must have been wearing your chip, because you didn’t start the race, because you knew you weren’t race-ready. If you’re lucky, they won’t look at the race photos to try and work out who was wearing your number. If they do - you’re stuffed, so you’d better make a convincing case. If I don’t see the letters DNS by your name in the official results, I’ll be the one telling the race organisers, Liberty, Serena and the Holby Gazette, who will be very interested, so as I say, make it convincing.”

He nodded frantically, seeing the Major in action for the first time.

“Good. I’ll be checking the results - don’t forget.” She watched as he shambled away in search of his wife, and she shook her head.

“Some people. As if twenty six miles is even that far…” And she looked at her watch, calculated that if she picked up her pace she could be home in time for _Gardeners’ Question Time_ , Serena’s favourite radio programme since she had taken on the allotment. She thought it was as dull as ditchwater herself, but Serena liked it, and she loved Serena, so she set off at a steady trot to cover the eight miles home.


End file.
